Washington Watch

Will the Obamas All Get Tattoos?

On the April 24 “Today” show, President Obama laid out the strategy he and Michelle have devised to discourage their daughters from getting tattoos.

“What we’ve said to the girls is, ‘If you guys ever decided you’re going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,” Obama told Savannah Guthrie in a taped interview. “And our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking that somehow that’s a good way to rebel.”

The logic behind the Obama’s tattoo-prevention strategy sounds oddly familiar. A couple of years ago, as Democrats and Republicans struggled for a way to break their budget standoff, Obama proposed this: Let’s come up with a fiscal scheme so repugnant to everybody that a compromise budget deal is inescapable.

So they came up with the sequester, which went like this: If no budget compromise comes to pass, we’ll cut a ton of money from the military: Republicans will hate that. And we’ll cut a ton of money from domestic programs: Democrats will hate that.